Peruta: cert denied

Posted by David Hardy · 26 June 2017 09:56 AM

Order here. Justices Thomas and Gorsuch dissent from the denial, suggesting that the combination has replaced Thomas and Scalia as two Justices who want to take cert and expand the Court's reading of the 2A: unfortunately, it takes four to grant and five to win. As always with a Thomas-written opinion, the dissent is clearly reasoned and written.

"We should have granted certiorari in this case. The approach taken by the en banc court is indefensible, and the petition raises important questions that this Court should address. I see no reason to await another case."

"Had the en banc Ninth Circuit answered the question actually at issue in this case, it likely would have been compelled to reach the opposite result. This Court has already suggested that the Second Amendment protects the right to carry firearms in public in some fashion. As we explained in Heller, to "bear arms" means to "'wear, bear, or carry upon the person or in the clothing or in a pocket, for the purpose of being armed and ready for offen­sive or defensive action in a case of conflict with another person.' .... The most natural reading of this definition encom­passes public carry. I find it extremely improbable that the Framers understood the Second Amendment to protect little more than carrying a gun from the bedroom to the kitchen."

"Even if other Members of the Court do not agree that the Second Amendment likely protects a right to public carry, the time has come for the Court to answer this important question definitively."

"The Court's decision to deny certiorari in this case re­ flects a distressing trend: the treatment of the Second Amendment as a disfavored right."

"For those of us who work in marbled halls, guarded constantly by a vigilant and dedicated police force, the guarantees of the Second Amendment might seem anti­ quated and superfluous. But the Framers made a clear choice: They reserved to all Americans the right to bear arms for self-defense. I do not think we should stand by idly while a State denies its citizens that right, particularly when their very lives may depend on it."

Perhaps this cert denial is not so bad for the time being. If the 4 libs thought they could win, they would have provided the votes to hear it.

There is a challenge to California's ban on open carry working its way on up, so how that goes could provide impetus for hearing the issue later. The 9th CCA en banc opinion stressed that they were not addressing open carry in *Peruta*.